Microsoft tries whacking Google with European antitrust stick

Microsoft has spent so many years dealing with antitrust complaints that it …

The legality of Google's business practices in Europe have drawn increased criticism over the last year or so, and now things are about to get really interesting. Microsoft—an antitrust veteran, if there ever was one—has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission against Google, accusing the search giant of favoring itself when growing its search, advertising, and content tools. Microsoft says these behaviors reflect Google's anticompetitive attitude, and the company should find ways to innovate without violating Europe's competition laws.

Microsoft outlines a number of complaints that it has with Google's behavior, starting with Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube that eventually resulted in "technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it." Microsoft also says that Google has blocked Windows Phones from properly using YouTube while favoring its own Android platform with more YouTube features and richer user interfaces.

Those complaints are just the beginning, though—Microsoft accuses Google of hoarding "orphan" books without allowing competitors search access and restricting advertisers from accessing their own data, therefore discouraging them from switching to a competing ad platform. "Google contractually prohibits advertisers from using their data in an interoperable way with other search advertising platforms, such as Microsoft’s adCenter," wrote Microsoft. "If it’s too expensive to port their advertising campaign data to competing advertising platforms, many won’t do it. Competing search engines are left with less relevant ads, and less revenue."

The company also references the existing antitrust complaint against Google brought by three European search companies last year. Price-comparison site Foundem, a legal search engine called ejustice, and the now-Microsoft-owned Ciao! from Bing argued that Google tries to limit the success of the competition by keeping their search rankings low. Ciao! for Bing threw in an extra complaint about Google's AdSense terms (Microsoft says Google makes it costly to get good ad placement).

The most substantive of Microsoft's points, however, involve the distribution of Google search boxes throughout European websites, while contractually barring those sites from adding competing search boxes if they make use of Google's. "It is obviously difficult for competing search engines to gain users when nearly every search box is powered by Google. Google’s exclusivity terms have even blocked Microsoft from distributing its Windows Live services, such as e-mail and online document storage, through European telecommunications companies because these services are monetized through Bing search boxes," Microsoft said.

The YouTube complaints seem out of left field compared to the rest of the letter—we'd really like to see more details, but Microsoft denied our request for a copy of the filing. As for the rest, we can't say we haven't heard them before. Google regularly insists that its own search and ad policies reflect the company's goal of offering the best possible user experience, but now Microsoft is making a splash by joining the chorus of displeased parties who want to see some changes in Google's policies.

Microsoft says it recognizes the irony in its complaint against Google. The company has, after all, becomesomewhat of an expert in antitrust complaints—in Europe and beyond. Microsoft insists that its years' worth of experience on the receiving end of antitrust beatdowns has given it special appreciation of competition laws, though. "[T]he filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly," the company says, while simultaneously praising Google for its innovations and "engineering prowess" over the last decade.

Google's official response to the complaint is short and measured. "We're not surprised that Microsoft has done this, since one of their subsidiaries was one of the original complainants," Google spokesperson Adam Kovacevich told Ars. "For our part, we continue to discuss the case with the European Commission and we're happy to explain to anyone how our business works."